Ask a Scholar

A. It is appropriate to note that there are scholars who would deny that the Gospel of John is Jewish and/or that it is mystical. My own view, however, is that there is good reason to answer the question in the affirmative. The fourth Gospel has not only the Jewish Scriptures but Jewish traditions of interpretation woven into its very fabric. And the Christians by and for whom it was written had previously been expelled from their local synagogue by other Jews who disagreed with their views. The prologue (John 1:1-18) presents the lens through which the Gospel author wishes Jesus to be viewed, and it shares key concepts with the Jewish mystical philosopher Philo of Alexandria. The Gospel speaks of visions (John 1:51), which were an important part of mysticism, and emphasizes union with Jesus and ultimately with God through the spirit. It is possible that Jesus himself is viewed as a mystic, one who speaks with the divine voice because the divine Word/Spirit dwells in him. For all these reasons and more, the Gospel of John seems aptly described as a “Jewish mystical work.”

If you'd like to read further, Maurice Casey's Is John's Gospel True? is an example of a scholar denying the Jewishness of the Gospel of John. In contrast, Wayne Meeks famously said that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish at precisely those moments when it is also the most anti-Jewish! Two books sympathetic to the mystical view are Jey Kanagaraj's Mysticism in the Gospel of John and April DeConick's Voices of the Mystics, which includes a treatment of John.

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